The Handbook of Market Intelligence: Understand, Compete and Grow in Global Markets, 2nd Edition

Chapter 12Market Intelligence for Marketing, Sales, and Account Management

UNDERSTANDING THE CUSTOMERS AND COMPETITION

Laura had a new job. She had just started as a senior consultant in a company specialized in the recruitment of executives and white-collar professionals, and, with her ambitious sales targets, she was eager to start contacting the prospective customers. She had a purchased list of prospects to work with, but she soon realized she would need more than that to be able to maximize her productivity.

• She would need more information about the companies she was trying to turn from prospects to customers: how were they doing financially, what were their future plans, and what were their drivers for recruiting new people?
• She would need competitive pricing information: now she felt like she was flying blind, trying to do guesswork around how her proposals were doing against the competition.
• She would also need better market insight to help gear her efforts at the most lucrative market segments.

In other words, Laura would need Market Intelligence (MI) to add insight – and improved results – to her sales efforts.

Laura is not an exception among many of today’s sales professionals: she is capable and knowledgeable about sales work; however, she has already had several jobs at the age of 35, and to be able to quickly become productive in yet another company she needs MI support to make up for her lack of long experience with this particular company and industry. ...